Day care installation

The day care centre for the elderly in a small town is a nice and clean place where aged people can talk to each other, play games and generally entertain themselves. However, the number of elderly people in the centre, including people with mild dementia or more serious cognitive disabilities, has risen over the years. Consequently, the care centre’s staff does not have adequate time to spend with each person. Relatives are contacted and are asked to provide care to their elders, while the manager of the centre believes that more staff is needed but cannot be afforded.

LLM could be used in medium and large size elderly care centres to ameliorate such problems, as it provides a positive activity in which the elderly can be engaged while improving their cognitive and physical condition. We envision that a day care centre using LLM has both an eHome installation and a specific purpose room with a touch screen and all physical training equipment. Different types of physical training equipment can be used, in order to provide different levels of exertion according to the user’s abilities. The elders can also use one or more touch screens to access the cognitive training software. Meanwhile, they can work out on the physical training equipment of their choosing watching their performance on the screens. Finally, if any accident were to occur inside the eHome framework, the centre’s staff would be immediately notified to direct them to the location of the accident to provide assistance or medical care.

This advanced installation offers an added value to the day care centre, by prolonging, through the training process, the time that elders remain in a cognitive and physical condition that allows them to interact and engage with other people, without the need for more intensive personalized care. Elderly are able to extend the period of their enrolment at the day care centre, improving their own quality of life through social interaction, and ultimately providing more revenue for the care centre. Moreover, the centre’s staff can work more efficiently since the monitoring system would identify emergencies and direct staff accordingly.